Bill C-542 (Historical)

National Urban Workers Strategy Act

An Act to establish a National Urban Workers Strategy

This bill is from the 41st Parliament, 2nd session, which ended in August 2015.

Sponsor

Andrew Cash NDP

Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)

Status

Second reading (House), as of May 14, 2015
(This bill did not become law.)

Summary

This is from the published bill.

This enactment proposes to develop a National Urban Workers Strategy to address the common challenges faced by workers in Canada and to resolve inequities in taxation and access to social support mechanisms, including employment insurance. It requires the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to strike a task force, the membership of which must include the Minister of National Revenue, the Minister of Labour, the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Industry, to develop a National Urban Workers Strategy. The task force must consult with provincial and territorial ministers responsible for social services, labour, pensions and others areas that relate to workers, as well as with labour organizations, representatives from industry and associations representing groups affected by this Act.

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Bill numbers are reused for different bills each new session. Perhaps you were looking for one of these other C-542s:

C-542 (2010) An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (illness of child) and another Act in consequence

C-542 (2009) An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (illness of child) and another Act in consequence

C-542 (2008) An Act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (illness of child) and another Act in consequence

National Urban Workers Strategy ActRoutine Proceedings

October 21st, 2013 / 3:05 p.m.

NDP

Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-542, An Act to establish a National Urban Workers Strategy.

Mr. Speaker, it used to be that when a person left school, he or she could get a job, work for the same company for 30 or 40 years, earn enough to raise a family and then be able to retire with a pension. However, all of that has changed. More and more Canadians are working as independent contractors, are self-employed, or free lance or working multiple part-time jobs and a growing number of particularly young workers are working for free as unpaid interns. These are what I call urban workers.

This diverse group of workers have a lot in common. They have no access to a workplace pension, no benefits and no job security. Today, with the tabling of this bill, we would begin to change that.

A national urban workers strategy would lay a new foundation in order to prevent the misuse and abuse of unpaid interns by working with the provinces to fill in the gaps in our laws that leave interns without protection, to increase access to employment insurance for all workers, to bring more fairness to the tax system for the self-employed and for workers with fluctuating incomes and to ensure that all Canadians could retire with a livable pension.

This proposed national urban workers strategy will support all Canadians in big cities, small towns and rural areas who are struggling with the issues of precarious employment. It is time our policies reflect the reality of work in the 21st century and that is why Canada needs an urban workers strategy.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)